AHMEDABAD: Over 40,000 women went missing in Gujarat over the course of five years, as per official statistics. According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, 7,105 women went missing in 2016, 7,712 in 2017, 9,246 in 2018, and 9,268 in 2019.
In 2020, 8,290 women were reported to have gone missing. The total number adds up to 41,621.
Incidentally, as per a statement made by the state government in the Assembly in 2021, 4,722 women went missing in just one year (2019-20) in Ahmedabad and Vadodara.
Sudhir Sinha, a former IPS officer and member of the Gujarat State Human Rights Commission, said, “In some missing person cases, I have observed that girls and women are occasionally sent to states other than Gujarat and forced into prostitution.”
“The police system’s problem is that it does not treat missing person cases seriously. Such cases are more serious than murder. That’s because when a child goes missing, the parents wait for years for their child, and the missing case should be investigated as rigorously as a murder case,” he added.
“Missing person cases are frequently ignored by the police since they are investigated in the British-era manner,” Sinha said.
Former additional director general of police Dr. Rajan Priyadarshi said human trafficking was to blame for girls going missing. “During my tenure, I observed that a majority of missing women are picked up by illegal human trafficking groups who transport them to another state and sell them.”
“When I was Superintendent of Police (SP) in Kheda district, a person from Uttar Pradesh who was working as a labourer in the district picked up a poor girl and sold her in his native state, where she was put to work worked as a farm labourer. We managed to get her rescued, but this does not happen in many cases,” he said.
Hiren Banker, a spokesperson of the Gujarat Congress, said, “BJP leaders talk about women in Kerala but more than 40,000 women are missing in Gujarat, the home state of the country’s PM as well as the Home Minister.”